Denver police officers approved a new contract Monday that includes gradual pay raises over the next three years.

The first raise would kick in Jan. 1 with a 2.5 percent increase, said Nick Rogers, president of the Denver Police Protective Association. Officers would receive a 3.5 percent raise in 2016 and a 4 percent raise in 2017.

“I’m very pleased,” Rogers said. “It’s fair to the officers, and I think it’s also fair to the city.”

The contract was approved with “yes” votes coming from 88 percent of the 742 officers who voted, Rogers said. The votes were certified Monday.

The Denver City Council must approve the contract before the raises are final.

Raises have been scant or even nonexistent in the past couple of years. Officers received a 1 percent raise for 2014 and no raise in 2013.

The city’s improving economic conditions led to the negotiated raises, Rogers said.

“The city is definitely doing much better financially,” he said.

The contract also includes some new benefits, such as on-call pay of 1 percent of an officer’s base salary.

Officers also would receive their birthdays as a holiday, a benefit that had been taken from them in previous contracts. That benefit was dropped in the past to save the city money.

Noelle Phillips, a Nashville native and a Western Kentucky University journalism school grad, covers law enforcement and public safety for The Denver Post. She has spent more than 20 years in the newspaper world. During that time, she's covered everything from rural towns in the Southeast to combat in the Middle East. The Denver Post is her fifth newspaper and her first in the West.

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